Enjoy the Sweeter Side of Life . . .

Caldo Verde (“Poor Soup”)

Right now, I’m sitting in the kitchen, typing and listening to the spattering of the soup that is bubbling on the stove. Perhaps I love this time of year so much because I really enjoy cooking and making soup. There is something so satisfying about eating a warm bowl of soup on a cool evening, especially when it’s made with the last of the fresh local veggies of the season.

It seems as though the stars have aligned for me to cook this particular soup, not only because of the brisk air outside, but because a) I recently got a bag of fresh veggies from our CSA group (community supported agriculture) that Jill and I joined this year and b) I had two of my wisdom teeth out this morning and just about all I can eat is soup! But the most important reason for my being compelled to cook this soup was because of a chance encounter at the bakery.

Jill and I had been closed for a few hours on Saturday evening when a very nice older woman, Maria I believe was her name, came in with her granddaughter. I saw them walking towards us from across the street, and as soon as they entered the doorway, the woman asked what I would be doing with the collard greens that were sitting out. I had just gotten them from the farm that day and, since I don’t have much experience cooking collards, I had been wondering myself how I would prepare them. She then began to tell me what called, ‘poor soup.’

The nice woman, who had a sharp Portuguese accent, told me about using collard greens in her ‘poor soup.’ She told me that it’s very simple, and at it’s most basic, the soup is simply pureed potato soup with thin slices of collards in it. Caldo Verde is the proper name for it, and I saw later online that it could be considered a national dish of both Portuguese and Brazilian cuisines!

I could also see she why called it ‘poor soup,’ since it was nothing put cheap ingredients, bulked up with water to stretch the number of people it could feed. Borcht would be the ‘poor soup’ of Jill’s Grandmom, since beets, cabbage and potatoes are featured prominently (and cheaply) in Ukrainian cooking.

Caldo Verde is farm food, which I love so much! Maria told me how she doctors up the basic soup, maybe a carrot and onion with the potatoes, and always with pieces of a good Portuguese sausage for a little meaty richness and salty boost.

After a few minutes of chatting, Maria’s daughter showed up and after telling me how to properly clean and prepare the collards and feeding me a few stories of ‘poor soup’ she pulled from her memory, the three women purchased the last of the pastries we had left in the case and took off into the evening.

Today though, I’m not feeling well on account of my now-removed wisdom teeth, but Grandmom made me a pot of lentil soup to help me recover. When I returned from the surgeon’s office this afternoon, I enjoyed the hearty vegetarian lentil soup down to my soul. Real soul food… Thank you Grandmom!

But then as it got closer to dinnertime, I wanted to make a pot of soup for myself, and ‘poor soup’ seemed the rational choice of what to prepare. The cool thing about a basic recipe (like Maria’s ‘poor soup’) is that you can add endless amount of variety. The recipe is so simple, it’s essentially a method and with practice one can prepare all sorts of new dishes. This is on reason why I love learning about new foods, the foods of different cultures, because once you learn the basics of that cuisine, you can tweak it to make it your own.

In my CSA bag, besides the collards, were a few sweet potatoes and a sweet pepper. I thought I could chop those up and add them to the potatoes as they simmered, as well as a carrot, an onion, a few cloves of garlic and about a cup of leftover white wine that I had in the fridge. I also added to a bay leaf, for flavor and to aid in digestion, as well as some salt and pepper. While that simmered, I prepared the collards by cutting the stems out (too tough), rolling the large deep green leaves into tight bundles like a cigar and then cutting them into thin strips (which is called a chiffonade cut). I then washed them in the salad spinner and they were ready to be cooked.

The soup was ready at that point, the bubbling had slowed a bit and sounded like the aromatic vegetable broth was thickening. I quickly and carefully poured the soup into the blender to puree and back into the pot, where I added the collards and let it all simmer for another few minutes (not too long, I was instructed by Maria). I didn’t have any sausage (I could have used a nice Italian pepperoni or Spanish chorizo if I had either) so it was a vegan soup. A little EVOO drizzled on top to give it an extra layer of richness, done. Wholesome, healthy, satisfying and, from the smell coming from the bowl in front of me, very tasty. Perfect on a cool, fall evening…

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2 Responses

We’ve been eating a lot of soup lately as fall has been here for a while already, this sounds great. Wish we could get some fresh greens up here. But we are joining a local organization similar to yours. Silly us to do so right after the growing season has ended. Still, better than nothing.